


Coming Home

by CarnationGem (Akumeoi)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Family, Forgiveness, Gen, Siblings, Templars (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 18:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16838269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/CarnationGem
Summary: Harper Trevelyan seeks to join the Inquisition, but he's not sure how his Inquisitor sister will react.





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Was digging up old fics for Rev and stumbled on this. Kalani unfortunately sided with the Templars because I didn't know better on her playthrough (and I guess neither did she).
> 
> [Read Kalani's story here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11105529/chapters/24781518)

Leading his horse by the bridle, Harper walked away from the rocky overhang he had spent the night under, back to the icy mountain trail he had been following for the past few days. 

At the beginning, he had passed many people on the trail to Skyhold. But as they got higher and higher in the mountains, those people began to straggle wildly, and he found himself more and more often travelling alone. Now, it seemed that he was the only human soul stirring in the pink glow of early morning. It was cold, and he was shivering slightly, but the clear sky promised the temperature would be bearable for the rest of the day. 

As the left the shadow of the mountain, he checked on the horse - it was a fine beast, and Kalani would never forgive him for letting it get frostbite or break a leg. Of course, he had carefully rubbed it down and cleaned its hooves the night before, but it was better safe than sorry. Absently, he patted it on the neck, then used a convenient boulder to mount up. 

At the moment, the path seemed to be taking them up and around the edge of the mountain. All around, grey and brown rocky faces, scrubbed bare by harsh winter winds, frowned down on him, white, powdery veils of snow swirling around them. The sky was populated with a few fluffy groups of fast-moving clouds, which scuttled forward as if racing each other towards the rim of the sky. The sun was yet low on the horizon, so the shadows cast long streaks of black across the scene, and the sky was coloured with a pale, pearly glow. 

It had been over a year since he had last seen his sister, and for the better part of that time, he had thought her dead. And now, he was going to see her again. He had so many things to say to her. Amends had to be made.

The horse nickered softly as he nudged its sides with his heels. This high up, with the ice so slick and the ground so uneven, there was no way he could ask it to go any faster than a trot. Perhaps there was a better way of getting to this castle, but he hadn’t seen one so far. He didn’t know how long the rest of the journey would take, but he knew he was still going the right way because every so often there would be an Inquisition banner planted into a snowbank, or carved into the side of the cliff face beside the path. 

The sight of those banners filled him with a mixed sense of hope and trepidation. Would Kalani be happy to see him? The last time he had seen her, she had been almost on her knees. At the time, he had thought that their parents were doing the right thing in disciplining her so harshly. But now, he deeply regretted not trying to stand up for her. He should have tried to understand her, should have seen how desperately unhappy she really was. She was his younger sister. She was more than just a disobedient wild child, she was a beloved sibling reaching out to him for help. But instead of seeing that, he had called her foolish, told her she should be grateful for the cruel offences against her, and then turned away. 

That thought, more than the frosty mountain air, was what made him shiver. That thought, more than the horse he was riding, was what was carrying him forward. Finding out that Kalani had survived the explosion at the Conclave had been like being given a second chance at his whole life - to make a new life, where he didn’t live under his parents’ thumb, where he thought for himself, and where he could be the kind of person his own sister would want to have in her life. 

_Kalani…_ he thought. _I know the chances are slim, but can you forgive me? I promise you, I’m not the same person anymore._

One of the horse’s back feet skittered over a patch of ice, jolting Harper out of his thoughts. He shook his head, hoping the little tendrils of hair that had loosened from his bun would fall back into place on their own so he could see. If he didn’t want to go over a cliff, he should be paying more attention to his surroundings. Of course, he was an expert horseman, but that wouldn’t help if he didn’t see the fall in time to react to it. 

After surveying the terrain in front of him, Harper was about to relax again when he and his faithful horse finally crested the hill. His breath caught in his throat. 

There, over the rise, was a castle sitting proudly atop the snow-covered mountain, its banners swaying softly in the wind - not Inquisition banners alone, he noted. The black and gold sword-and-eye-topped heraldry was interspersed with the white and crimson of the Templar order. 

Had Kalani picked those banners? Had she any idea that Harper might ever see them? And if she knew that, did she also know that in spite of everything, it felt to him like she was already welcoming him to a new home?


End file.
